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Plate 9.
 The game, which was invented merely as an amusement for the
deranged King, spread with such rapidity among the people that the
Prevôt de Paris, in an ordinance dated Jan. 22, 1397, was obliged to
“forbid working people from playing tennis, ball, cards, or ninepins,
excepting only on holidays.” Especial notice should be taken of the fact
that in a celebrated and oft-quoted ordinance made only twenty-eight
years previously by Charles the Fifth, in which all games of hazard
were enumerated, no allusion whatever was made to cards, while in
the fifteenth century they are always carefully mentioned when games
of chance are enumerated. By this we can place approximately the
date of their invention or introduction into France.
Although packs of Tarots have survived since the fifteenth century,
and one in particular will be described, there are no existing specimens
of the original Tarots (Tarocchi, Tarocchini); but there is a pack which
was engraved by a burin (or graving-tool), that probably was executed
about the year 1460, which is known to be an exact copy of the first
Tarots.
Rafael Maffie, who lived at the end of the fifteenth century, left in his
“Commentaries” a description of Tarots, which were then, said he, “a
new invention;” but he probably was speaking relatively of the origin of
cards. From his description and the documents of others it is clear that
the pack of Tarots was composed of four or five suits, each one of the
ten cards being numbered in sequence, and displaying as their
symbols the Denari, the Bastoni, the Coppe, and the Spade; and these
suits were headed by the court cards of King, Knight, and Knave, to
which was sometimes added a Queen. Besides these cards, which
were en suite, there were others which bore fanciful figures, and which
were named Atouts. The Tarots have been so fully described in
another place that it is not necessary to repeat the description here.
A very slight knowledge of the history of playing-cards reveals the
fact that Tarots were known in France long before the invention of the
game of Piquet, which is undoubtedly of French origin; and besides
this, the cards which are said to have belonged to Charles the Sixth
are Tarots, and must be classed as such. They are preserved in the
Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, and they
may be looked upon with respect as being the oldest in any collection,
public or private. Although nearly five hundred years of age, they are
well preserved.
Besides the Tarot pack, which is supposed to have been one of the
three packs that were painted by Gringonneur, there are preserved in
the same museum parts of another old pack which show distinctly that
they are of a later date. These cards are essentially French, and are
not to be classed among the Tarots. There are a King, Queen, and
Knave in each suit. Their Saracenic origin may still be traced, as they
bear the crescent of the Mussulman instead of the carreau (diamond)
of the Frenchman; and the Club is shaped after the Arabic or Moorish
fashion, which had four equal branches, like a four-leaved clover,
instead of the three leaves that were afterward adopted as the
distinctive symbol of the suit.
Another noticeable peculiarity is that the King of Hearts is
represented as a monkey covered with hair or skins, and he leans on a
knobby staff. The Queen of his suit is dressed in skins like her consort,
and in one hand she carries a torch. It would seem natural that the
Knave of Hearts should be dressed to correspond with the royal
personages belonging to his suit; but instead it is the Knave of Clubs
who is represented as covered with hair or dressed in skins, and he
carries a knotty stick over one shoulder. A part of another card has
been found among those that the book-binder’s knife has separated
from the proper body (for these cards, like so many of their kind, once
formed part of the binding of a book); and this one shows the legs only
of a fourth hairy person. The upper part has unfortunately never been
found.
With the exception of these savages, all the other figures of the pack
are dressed after the fashion of the court of Charles the Seventh of
France. The costume of the Queen of Diamonds resembles that of
Marie d’Anjou, his consort. The figures of the Kings, with the exception
of the hairy one, are dressed precisely like the pictures of Charles the
Seventh or the lords of his court. They wear a velvet hat surmounted
by a crown formed of fleurs-de-lis, with a coat opened in front and
bordered with ermine. The doublet is tight-fitting, and the boots
extremely high. The dresses of the Knaves are copies of those worn by
the pages and the sergent-d’armes of the period. One of them wears a
plumed cap and a long coat with flowing sleeves. The other Knave is in
court dress, and is the complete opposite of his fellow, as he wears a
closely fitting doublet. The latter carries a banner on which is displayed
the name of the manufacturer, F. Clerc. It seems therefore safe to
conclude that these cards are of French origin. And now occurs an
interesting question, which is, how it is possible to explain the presence
of the savage King, Queen, and Knave among the other court cards,
which are all dressed in the height of the fashion of the period of
Charles the Seventh; but if the history of the preceding reign is referred
to, the probable solution of this enigma will be found.
On the 29th of February, 1392, a grand fête was held in the palace of
Queen Blanche, given in honour of the marriage of the Chevalier
Vermandois to one of her Majesty’s maids of honour. The King,
Charles the Sixth, who had been for some time in a melancholy state
of mind which sometimes amounted to madness, was for the time
being enjoying a lucid interval, and was induced to enter into a frolic
which was proposed by one of his favourite courtiers by the name of
Hugonin de Janzay. It was arranged that in this masquerade the King
and five of his lords should take part. “It was,” says Juvenal des Ursins,
“a momerie of savage men, heavily chained and dressed in justes au
corps made of linen which had been greased and covered with hairs,
and which was made to fit close to the body.” Froissart, who was an
eyewitness of this fête, says that “the six actors in the dance rushed
into the ball-room howling and shaking their clattering chains.” As no
one was able to recognize the hairy monsters, so well were they
disguised, the Duc d’Orleans, the King’s brother, seized a lighted torch
from the hands of an attendant, and pressed it so closely against one
of these strange people that the light set fire to the linen coat, which
blazed up immediately. By great good fortune the King had become
separated from his companions, all of whom with only one exception
were roasted alive. This lucky chevalier rushed from the room, and
flung himself head first into a vat full of water and thus saved his life.
Charles indeed escaped; but the horrors of the situation, combined
with the terror, fatigue, and grief to which it gave rise, so impressed his
already enfeebled mind that he became hopelessly insane.
The Ballet des Ardents left such a vivid impression on the public
mind that sixty years later a German engraver made it the subject of a
print, so that it is not hazarding an inadmissible guess to fancy that a
card-maker of the day should seize upon it for a subject, particularly as
the cards of the period were sometimes decorated like the horrible
Dance of Death, as if they were intended to awaken in the mind of the
roystering player some thoughts which might lead him to dwell on more
serious subjects, and by means of the cards to reach persons who
might otherwise never be drawn to think of them.
There is another and very important fact which must not be
overlooked when we are endeavoring to trace a resemblance between
the savages depicted on the cards and the personages of the day. The
Queen of Hearts is represented as a wild woman holding a torch; and it
may be remembered that Isabella of Bavaria, the wife of Charles the
Sixth, had agreed to this fatal masquerade, and had encouraged it by
her presence, and that this frolic came very near relieving her of her
insane consort. Her accomplice in this scheme was the Duc d’Orleans,
her brother-in-law, who may have intentionally set fire to the
inflammable clothes of these savages, among whom was the King. The
gossip of the day certainly accused these two persons with having
designed the masquerade with the hope of ridding themselves of the
King, whose life interfered greatly with their infamous projects.
Having described what is perhaps the oldest pack of cards which
have been preserved, attention must be drawn to another—or rather a
fragment of a pack—which is very little, if any, younger than the set
already studied. These cards can be traced back to the same period as
the first, and are identified by the costumes of the court. They bear
great similarities to the modern cards, and are supposed to have been
the Adams and Eves of the card world. These are absolutely the first
specimens of the French suit cards; the marks of the pips, Clubs,
Hearts, Spades, and Diamonds are here displayed for the first time;
and if not the pack rearranged by the French courtier, they must have
been manufactured at the same time. In these the Kings, Queens, and
Knaves bear attributes as well as symbols. The first-named carry
spears, and the Queens flowers, and everything in the pictures reflects
the fashions of the period; and in them can be discovered no violation
of the laws of heraldry or the customs of chivalry.
 Tradition points to this pack as that first used in Piquet. It dethroned
the Italian Tarots and the cards of Charles the Sixth, and was the
ancestor of the present cards. It is believed that they were the
invention of Étienne Vignoles, or La Hire, one of the bravest and most
active warriors of the day. M. la Croix declares that this tradition should
receive respectful attention, because even a cursory examination of
the game of Piquet shows that it could only have been the work of an
accomplished knight, or have at least originated in a mind intimately
acquainted with chivalrous manners and customs. But this charming
French author points to another courtier, a contemporary and friend of
Vignoles, who might have made the ingenious discovery or invention
which resulted in the overthrow of the ancient Tarots; and this was
Étienne Chevalier, secretary and treasurer to the King, and famous for
his talent for designing, who was one of the cleverest draughtsmen of
his day, and who was perfectly capable of rearranging the pack,
introducing a Queen in place of the Vizir or Knight, and adopting
symbolic colours and distinguishing devices to mark the suits.
The original cards may perhaps have been imported into France and
introduced at court by one Jacques Cœur, whose commercial relations
with the East were so extensive that he was even accused of supplying
the Saracens with arms. In India the cards represented the game of the
Vizir and of War, but under the hands of the royal secretary it became
the game of the Knight and of Chivalry. He placed on the cards the
unicorn which is often found in old packs; nor did he forget to do
honour to Jacques Cœur in substituting les cœurs for les coupes. He
changed the deniers (money) to diamonds (or arrow-heads), and
spears to spades. He may have adapted his designs from those on the
German cards, as they bear hearts like the French packs; and a few
strokes of the pencil would convert the acorn of the former into the club
of the latter. The affinity between the cards of the two countries is quite
apparent, but to whom we owe the invention is undecided.
It was in December, 1581, or in the reign of Henry the Third, that the
first laws which fix the standing of the fesseurs de cartes are found.
These statutes, which were confirmed by letters-patent in 1584 and
1613, remained in force until the Revolution. When the privileges of the
Corporation were confirmed in 1613, a rule was made that the master
card-makers should henceforth and forever put their names, surnames,
seals, and devices on the Valet de Trifle (Knave of Clubs) in each pack
of cards,—a rule which only followed and confirmed an ancient custom,
and one which is adopted to the present day.
The modern French cards differ slightly from those used in England
and America, as they are smaller, and the edges are rounded and
generally gilded. The cards, instead of being perfectly flat, are slightly
curved; and this is in order to facilitate shuffling, which is not done in
France in the way usually adopted among English-speaking nations,
where the pack is divided and laid on a flat surface, and the edges of
the cards are lifted and allowed to pass quickly one over the other, in
this way distributing or shuffling them very rapidly. The French cards
are divided, but held up, and the sides of the two parts pressed
together, which shuffles them effectually, but which it is impossible to
do if the cards are not curved.

ENGLAND.

S OME of the most interesting collections of old playing-cards can be

seen in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the South Kensington
Museum, and the British Museum in London. The latter collection has a
historian of its own; and the variety, number, and beauty of the packs in
this place are minutely recorded, and form an interesting study by
themselves. By their aid it is possible to note the various changes and
modifications which have crept in among the costumes of the court,
and the pips of the suit cards. The early packs seem to have been
imported from Spain, as they bear the old symbols of coin, maces,
swords, and cups. Other packs have been found which were stencilled
with the grelots (bells) commonly found on the early German cards; but
finally the French card came into common use, and these were
adopted and have been universally accepted in England, and by her
introduced into her colonies, so that these marks of Hearts, Diamonds,
Clubs, and Spades are found all over the globe.
Plate 10.
 The English and American card of the present day differs slightly
from those in use in France. The latter have discarded obsolete
costumes and fanciful devices when designing the figures of the court
cards, and the dresses are modernized, the faces are shaded, and the
whole figure looks more like a pretty picture than the cherished card
dear to the heart of the Englishman, whose Kings are dressed
somewhat after the fashion of Henry the Eighth, the Queens like his
mother, Elizabeth of York, and the Knaves in the costume adopted by
the lower classes in the days of Chaucer.
It is perhaps to the overthrow of the court-card family during the
French Revolution that this radical change in their costumes is due.
When the monarchs of the suits were beheaded and their places taken
by the sages, philosophers, etc., of the day, it was natural that the
obsolete costumes should disappear with them, and that when the
royalties of card-land returned to their thrones, the card-maker should
adopt the costumes then in fashion in which to clothe the royal family.
There having been no such disaster in England, the Kings of the cards
have peacefully ruled for several hundred years, clad in the garments
of their ancestors, which have only become quainter and more peculiar
with the lapse of years, so that now they are often merely lines and
dots, and are hardly to be recognized as ermine-trimmed garments
which were originally covered with correct heraldic devices.
Plate 11.
 The first introduction of cards into England (for it has never been
claimed that they were invented there) is a matter of dispute; but it is
probable that they were known in that country soon after the Second
Crusade, at the latter end of the thirteenth century. A passage has
been found in the Wardrobe Rolls of Edward the First (1278) which is
pointed to by some writers who wish to prove that cards were adopted
in England before they were known in other countries; and they claim
that this is the earliest mention of a game of cards in any authenticated
register. In this account is recorded the following passage: “Waltero
Sturton ad opus regis ad ludendum ad Quatuor Reges viii. s. vd.” But it
by no means follows that “Four Kings” meant cards; it might have been
any game, and may have been intended for Chess played with four
armies, each one headed by a king,—a game which is by no means
obsolete, and which has already been described. Edward the First had
served in Syria for five years before his accession to the throne of
England, and some writers assert that he brought cards home with
him; but Chaucer, who died in 1400, never mentions cards, although in
enumerating the amusements of the day he says,—
“They dancen and they play at chess and tables.”
The year 1465 is the earliest date at which any positive mention is
made of cards in England, and this was in a law which forbade their
use except at certain specified times and seasons.
It is probable that cards first made their way into the country from
Spain, as the oldest packs which have been found in England bear the
symbols of cups, money, maces, swords; and the word spade (the
Spanish name for one of their suits) seems to have become attached
to the French pique after the cards of the latter nation became
domiciled in the British Isles.
Mr. Singer, quoting from another author, says that “there is little
doubt but that the cards used during the reign of Philip and Mary and
probably the more early part of Elizabeth’s were Spanish, though they
were afterwards changed for the French, being of a more simple figure
and more easily imported.” The wars between England and France,
during which the army of the former nation were in their sister country,
may have led to the adoption of the French card; but it is strange that
the costumes on the English cards should date from an earlier period
than the reign of Mary or Elizabeth.
“Queen Elizabeth as well as her sister Mary,” says Mr. Chatto, “was
a card-player,” and lost her temper over the game, in which she did not
resemble Queen Anne of Austria, of whom one of her ladies-in-waiting,
Madame de Motteville, says: “She played like a queen, without passion
of greed or gain.” During Elizabeth’s reign, in 1582, the Master of the
Revels was commanded “to show on St. Stephen’s day at night before
her Majesty at Wyndesore a Comodie or Morral devised on a game of
the cardes,” to be performed by the children of her Majesty’s Chapel. In
the comedy “Alexander and Campaspe,” which was shown by the
same children at Windsor before the Queen, was the following pretty
little song, quoted by Mr. Chatto:—

“Cupid and my Campaspe played

At cards for kisses. Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how);
With these the chrystal on his brow
And then the dimple of his chin;—
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes.
She won, and Cupid blind doth rise.
Oh, Love, has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?”

“It is probable that Primero was one of the earliest games of cards
played in England,” says Mr. Singer; “and it continued to be the most
fashionable one throughout the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward the
Sixth, Mary, Elizabeth, and James.” Shakspeare makes Falstaff say,—
“I never prospered since I forswore myself at Primero;”
showing that it was a well known game at that period. “An alteration
or improvement of this game became,” says the same author, “known
as El Hombre (The man), or Ombre, which is the national game of
Spain.” It was played generally by three persons, at small three-
cornered tables; and these little card-tables are frequently found
among collections of old furniture.
That Ombre, or its successor, Quadrille, was a fashionable game at
no very ancient period, is proved by the inimitable description given in
Cranford of the card-parties held in that mildewed little place. It says:
“The drawing-rooms contained small tables, on which were displayed a
kaleidoscope, conversation cards, puzzle cards (tied together to an
interminable length with faded pink satin ribbon). The card-table was
an animated scene to watch,—four old ladies’ heads, with niddle-
noddling caps all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their
eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough, ‘Basto, madam,
you have Spadille, I believe.’”
Plate 12.
 A game much in favour among the common folks at the latter end of
the sixteenth century was, says Singer, “an old one called Trump,
which was probably the Triumfo of the Spaniards and Italians.” In that
amusing performance “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” first acted in 1561,
Dame Chat says to Diccon,—
“We sat at trump man by the fire;”
and afterward to her maid she says,—
“There are five trumps besides the Queen.”
Trump bore some resemblance to Whist or Ruff (another name for
that game); and it is noticeable that these two words should still be
used in playing Whist, and that both of them signify the same thing. We
are told by Mr. Singer that Whist and Honours (alias Slam) were games
commonly known in all parts of England, and that “every child of eight
years old has competent knowledge in that recreation.”
In a book published in 1787, called “The Complete Gamester,” by
Richard Seymour, Esq., we find the following sentence: “Whist, vulgarly
called Whisk, is said to be a very ancient game among us, and the
foundation of all English games upon the cards.” It was probably
invented about the period of Charles the Second. Its original name was
Whist, or the Silent game. It is believed that “it was not played upon
principles until about 1736; before that time it was chiefly confined to
servants’ halls. The rules laid down by the gentlemen who frequented
the Crown Coffee House in Bedford Row were: ‘To play from a straight
suit; to study your partner’s hand as much as your own; never to force
your partner unnecessarily, and to attend to the score.’” At one time it
was usual to deal four cards together. Horace Walpole, writing in 1767
from Paris, says: “The French have adopted the two dullest things the
English have,—Whist and Richardson’s novels.”
The Whist-players of the last century would be astonished to see the
developments a hundred years have made in this game. At the present
time the books which have been written on it alone would fill a small
book-case,—the one by “Cavendish,” who is the acknowledged
authority on the game, having reached its seventeenth edition; and it
has become so complicated that its rules require profound study, and
so fashionable that teachers of its mysteries have sprung up in all
directions. Several ladies have adopted the profession of Whist-
teachers, and have found it a most profitable one. One person has
reduced the system of teaching it to a science, and has also invented
an arrangement by which “a singleton” can play a four-handed game of
Whist. This is done by placing an ingenious combination of letters and
figures on the backs of the ordinary playing-cards, which can be sorted
according to these instead of being dealt in the usual way. The cards
having been sorted are placed face downward on the table, and then
turned up in regular order exactly as if played by four persons. As they
have been arranged so as to illustrate certain styles of play or
exemplify well known rules, the games they play are not only most
amusing, but also instructive. The credit of this novel invention is due
to Mr. Frederic Foster, a well known teacher of the noble game of
Whist; and his pack is known as the “Self-playing Cards.”
The national games of the different countries are said to be: Italy,
Minchiate; Germany, Landsknechtspiel, or Lansquenet; France, Piquet;
Spain, El Hombre; America, Poker.

AMERICA.

T HE history of Playing-cards would be incomplete without some

reference to their introduction into America, and a slight sketch of
the games most in favour in that country. History tells us that Columbus
carried cards with him in his ship on the voyage of discovery in 1492,
and that his sailors employed every spare moment playing with them,
until their superstitious fancies persuaded them that this impious
practice was the cause of the long voyage and contrary winds which
alarmed them so greatly. During the frenzy caused by this panic, they
flung overboard their Jonahs (the cards). Their safe arrival at what they
believed to be the Promised Land caused them to forget their fears,
and they soon regretted the rashness with which they had sacrificed
their beloved amusement; so with considerable ingenuity they made for
themselves new packs from the leaves of the copas-tree. Tradition
states that the sacrificed cards had been made of leather. The
introduction of cards into America, their first makers, and the materials
used, are therefore matters of history, and call for no research or
speculation.
Plate 13.
 A few years after the discovery of America, another history relates
that on the conquest of Mexico, and during the captivity of her
unfortunate king, Montezuma, he was deeply interested in watching the
games of cards played by the conquerors in his presence.
The Spanish marks of suits are now to be found on the cards used in
Mexico; but the inhabitants of that country are gradually adopting the
French marks used in their sister republic, the United States, and the
old cards will soon be as obsolete as their forefathers, the Tarots.
In those parts of the United States that were first settled by religious
fanatics it would be useless to search for any record of cards, as they
were looked upon with horror by both the Puritans and the Quakers,
and together with all games, such as Chess, Draughts, etc., were
considered inventions of the Evil One, and their use was sternly
forbidden; and it is more than probable that the famous “Mayflower,”
which seems to have contained enough furniture (judging from the
alleged specimens preserved) to have filled an ordinary-sized town, did
not contain one card-table or pack of playing-cards. It was natural,
however, that some amusement should be craved by the younger
members of society, and that games which were considered more
harmless than the “Devil’s books” (as cards were named by the
Puritans) should have been sought for and discovered. Among these
were the various kinds of instructive cards which had been invented so
many years previously by the Franciscan friar, and which had met with
so much favour in parts of Europe. These cards taught various
branches of science to the player, and were very numerous; and packs
of them by degrees forced their way into different places where the
wicked French cards, with their royal dames and kings and their
scampish knaves,—whose names alone were synonymous with
wrongdoing, gambling, and thieving,—and the innocent-looking but bad
little pips, were strictly forbidden.
 Plate 14.

One quaint pack of Educational Cards, which seems to have been

made in America and probably in New York, has been carefully
preserved for nearly one hundred years, and is most valuable as giving
specimens of the cards used at that time. This pack is now owned by
Dr. Richard Derby, a descendant of the Lloyd who was granted the
manor of Lloyd’s Neck, which was one of the original manors (or grants
of land) held under the English in the colony of New York; and these